Irish Quotes - page 20
That dense population in extreme distress inhabited an island where there was an established church which was not their church; and a territorial aristocracy, the richest of whom lived in distant capitals. Thus they had a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and, in addition, the weakest executive in the world. That was the Irish question.
Benjamin Disraeli
Bradlaugh makes the most noise, but the Irish Evictions Bill is much the most serious thing. ... If the Eviction Act passes, there will not be many more seasons. It is a revolutionary age and the chances are, that even you and I may live to see the final extinction of the great London Season, which was the wonder and admiration of our youth.
Benjamin Disraeli
I receive letters every day asking me to write a manifesto and make a speech; that I am the only man who could do so with effect; and all that. Why should I? I warned the country about Ireland before the General Election and told them to be vigilant, or there would be something happen there, "worse even than famine or pestilence". It has happened. And there have been elections since the Irish Revolution in England, Wales and Scotland, and they have supported the policy of imbecility and treason that has brought about all this disaster.
Benjamin Disraeli
Once governor, Dukakis played the puritan-reformer, offended by all forms of patronage -- including that of Tip O'Neill and Ted Kennedy. O'Neill, of the old school, held Dukakis, until very recently, in contempt. The younger Kennedy, spanning both the venerable Irish and reform traditions, was not fond of Dukakis, but did not wish hail and brimstone to fall on him. Nevertheless, it did. Dukakis, much unloved, was deposed in 1978.
Ted Kennedy
[I]n the northeastern portion of Ireland you have a population as hostile to Irish rule as the rest of Ireland is to British rule, yea, and as ready to rebel against this as the rest of Ireland is against British rule. ... As alien in blood, in religious faith, in traditions, in outlook-as alien from the rest of Ireland in this respect as the inhabitants of Fife or Aberdeen. It is no use mincing words. Let us have a clear understanding. To place them under national rule against their will would be as glaring an outrage on the principles of liberty and self-government as the denial of self-government would be for the rest of Ireland.
David Lloyd George
And of course, all of us in Congress quickly learned to host fundraisers the way Tip O'Neill did it--a thousand dollars if you came, and two thousand dollars if you didn't. Tip was scrupulously neutral in the 1980 Democratic primaries between President Carter and myself. But he told me that every night, before he went to sleep, he was secretly getting down on his knees and praying that we would have another Irish President of the United States. The prayer was a little ambiguous--but Tip's friend Ronald Reagan was very grateful. There was never any secret about the genius of Tip O'Neill. In his years as Speaker of the House, the entire Nation came to know him and love him as we did in Massachusetts. He was a Speaker who was never afraid to speak out for the average man and woman--the worker trying to keep a job, the child going hungry in the night, the family struggling to make ends meet, the senior citizen trying to live in dignity in retirement.
Ted Kennedy
There was no better way to spend an evening than to hear my brother swapping Irish stories with Tip. Jack loved him, and so did all the Kennedys. I'm sure that in heaven now, Tip is leading them all in a glorious round of "I'll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time." It may be apple blossom time up there, but here on earth, a beautiful blossom is gone. Still, the Speaker will always be with us in our mind's eye, in the hearts of thousands of his friends, and the tens of millions more who never met him, but whose lives are better today and whose hopes are brighter because he was a Speaker who spoke so powerfully for them. In an era so much pretension and superficiality and polldriven decisions in public life, Tip O'Neill was the real thing, and we were fortunate to have him as our leader.
Ted Kennedy
If it is a question of setting up an independent Irish Republic in this small group of islands, that is a thing we could only accept if we were absolutely beaten to the ground. We take the same view exactly of the position as President Lincoln took of the attempt of the Southern States to claim secession. There were men in this country who thought he ought to have recognised the Southern States. Lincoln, one of the greatest democratic figures who ever lived in the world, took a different view. History has justified Lincoln. I have met Southerners whose fathers fought and suffered for what they regarded as liberty, who now admit that Lincoln was right. Therefore it is no use my giving any hope that it is even possible to discuss any policy of reconciliation which involves the recognition of an independent Republic of Ireland.
David Lloyd George
[T]he great difficulty of this year respecting Ireland is one which does not spring from Trevelyan or C. Wood but lies deep in the breast of the British people. It is this. We have granted, lent, subscribed, worked, visited, clothed the Irish,-millions of money, years of debates etc etc-the only return is calumny and rebellion. Let us not grant, lend, clothe etc etc anymore, and see what that will do. Such is the result which MacHale, J. O'Connell, and Smith O'Brien have brought us. Now without borrowing or lending we could have no great plan for Ireland and, much as I wished it, I have to see that it is impractical.
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
For three hundred years the Protestant Established Church of Ireland has been the most odious and offensive emblem of the corruption and the intolerance of England. To have quietly removed this monopoly so offensive to the Irish nation, the target against which the arrows of Ireland's best archers were always aimed, without any of the rabbling which marked the expulsion of the English liturgy from Scotland, without disorder, without riot, is a great feat in the history of any statesman. No man can complain that he has been wronged, a nation may rejoice that she has been righted.
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
We give our confidence to the people of England because they have always been loyal to the Queen, have always loved the law, and have always been passionately attached to the Empire. (Cheers.) Has that characterised the Irish dominant faction? ... Why they have always sought support from time to time from whatever nation happened to be in hostility to England-first the Spaniards, then the French, and now the Americans.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
We have two duties before us; we have the duty of maintaining law and order for the sake, not only of the loyal population, but also for the population which breaks it, and we have the duty of securing the loyal population from such a change in the Constitution of the country as shall place their dearest interests in peril. It is idle to talk of leaving the Irish people to govern themselves. You know very well that they will not govern themselves, but that the majority will govern the minority in a way utterly inconsistent with its rights, and in a manner utterly fatal to all its industrial and commercial hopes.
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment, and good will... May this historic gathering be the prelude of a day in which the Irish people, North and South, under one Parliament or two, as those Parliaments may themselves decide, shall work together in common love for Ireland upon the sure foundation of mutual justice and respect.
George V of the United Kingdom
